Friday, November 27, 2009

Well, I've finished another cotton skein. This time, it's a pharmaceutical grade cotton that a friend from my spinning group and I split. It's pretty linty, but I got it to experiment spinning cotton on and it's working out pretty well, I think.You'll recall the yarn from a previous post:I decided to make a 4 ply skein with this yarn. I first wound the 4 spindle cops off onto a single paper towel roll, and plyed it off of that. This was a much easier choice than plying off the spindles itself. No tangles! The plying went really quickly too. Then, I skeined the yarn on my niddy noddy and got 196 yds. There was some left over on 2 of the spindles, but I just left that yarn and will add on to it later for another skein.

I'm very happy with this skein. Cotton is totally addictive. The spinning is very soothing and almost meditative, more so than wool, IMHO.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

I've had some bits and pieces(some very substantial) of various shades of brown fleeces already spun up and couldn't decide what to do with them. So, I came up with the idea to put all those pieces together to create a somewhat unique yarn. I had small spindles of babydoll and merino, then some alpaca, bond, cvm, rambo/romney and shetland. Here's what I did with it:

I made a 3 ply yarn and got 270 yds! It turned out much nicer than I anticipated.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Friday, November 13, 2009

I got some goodies this week.I received these beautiful polymer clay spindles from Jame in NC. I met her on Ravelry and fell in love with her tiny bead spindles. We arranged a trade - some of my fiber for 2 of her spindles! I'm really happy with them. Aren't they cute?

Last year around this time, I ordered some colored cotton bolls from Laura in NC. I ordered Erlene's green, Nankeen and Rust colored cotton. Well, I ginned the nankeen and spun that up. I saved the seeds and sent some to Joan in MS, who so graciously agreed., to plant some for me. The weather this season wasn't the most ideal due to lots of rain in MS. However, Joan did manage to salvage quite a bit of the bolls. She sent me a big box of nankeen cotton! Here it is:

Teri (whom I met through Spindlers yahoo group and on Ravelry) and I have done some trading in the past also. Earlier this year, I traded her some of my polymer clay bead spindles for a nice little spindle she made. Recently, Teri got some fiber from Dean's cotton Farm in NC. They have a cotton maze which they bulldoze at the end of the season. GASP! So she asked if she could have some of the cotton. I inquired about it and she volunteered to share some with me. Here it is:

Maria, a friend from my craft group, came to the last meeting with this cool apron that she'd sewn, and I thought it would be really cool for holding knitting and spinning supplies on the go. I asked her to make one for me. She suggested we should barter for it instead of spending money. Her little girl needed some fingerless mitts, so we decided to barter those for the apron. She received the mitts today and I have my apron. Here it is:

Craft people prove time and time again to be some of the most generous people around. Seriously! With the exception of Maria, I have never met any of these ladies. All of our dealings are done online. All of the online friends I've made through crafting have been so kind, generous and genuine. Thanks to all of you.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Yep! You read it right. I have a spindle project that took me four years to complete! I didn't intend for it to take that long. Really, I didn't. Let me tell you the story.... Four years ago when I taught myself to spin, I bought a 4 lb fleece from a nice lady shepherdess named Sandy at http://www.homesteadwoolandgiftfarm.com. It was a beautiful natural colored Border Leicester/Romney/Suffolk fleece. I carefully washed it and then begun spinning it on spindles (that's all I had at the time). Well, later a wheel came along. But, I had vowed to spin the entire fleece (minus a few ounces which I shared with a couple friends)on my spindles. But then the spinning obsession hit in HARD! I started accumulating other fleeces and fibers and got side tracked. The spindle project was forever a work in progress (WIP). Well, finally, four years later, I'm proud to say that I'm finished with that project! The skein before this final one was a struggle because my spinning was getting finer over the years and I had to use my CD spindle (what I started spinning the fleece on) and force myself not to spin fine. I used my four spindles that my friend Marion so lovingly made for me to finish up my last skein and got 644 yards from that! Could have gotten way more yarn on the final spindle, but I finished the fleece. The final skein (which I finished plying yesterday) was spun at a much finer grist than the others because I just gave up fighting to keep it thick. I'd planned to make a sweater from the yarn. I'll just use the thinner yarn for socks or a small shawl. See all my hard work?

I'm really proud of myself right now. It took four years, but I'm finished now and I'm happy with my yarn. Now ask me how long it will take to make my sweater. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...........................